1979 Election Weekly Poll 5

Q1 How do you think you will vote at the General Election on the 3rd May?
(If undecided or refused at Q1)
Q2 Which party are you most inclined to support?
Base: All expressing a voting intention

%

Conservative

44

Labour

41

Liberal

12

Other

3

Q3 Who do you think would make the better Prime Minister, Mr Callaghan or Mrs Thatcher?

%

Mr Callaghan

50

Mrs Thatcher

31

Don't know

19

Q4 How much do you personally care who wins the General Election?

%

I care very much indeed

38

I care quite a lot

26

I care a fair amount

17

I care a little

11

I don't care at all

8

Q5 Which, if any, of these politicians can you remember having seen on television during the election campaign?
Q6 Regardless of the party they support, which three or four of these politicians impressed you most when you saw them on television?

Seen

Impressed

%

%

Conservative

Edward Heath

48

13

Michael Heseltine

24

3

Geoffrey Howe

26

3

Sir Keith Joseph

36

7

James Prior

28

3

Francis Pym

13

1

Norman St John Stevas

15

2

Margaret Thatcher

87

32

William Whitelaw

45

7

Liberal

John Pardoe

36

10

Cyril Smith

33

5

David Steel

76

34

Jeremy Thorpe

36

2

Labour

Tony Benn

29

3

James Callaghan

87

35

Michael Foot

31

4

Roy Hattersley

23

2

Denis Healey

58

8

David Owen

33

4

Merlyn Rees

32

3

Peter Shore

18

2

John Silkin

18

2

Shirley Williams

56

16

Harold Wilson

30

4

None

None of these

5

15

Percentages given under "impressed" are the proportion of the total sample who had seen and been impressed by each politician, not the proportion of those who had seen the politician on TV that had been impressed by him/her